How to Add Scent to Your Wedding with Design In Scent

I’ve invited two colleagues whom I hold Dear to me, to join us today to talk about the history and power of our fifth sense – smell; and how to adding scent to your wedding day can completely elevate your day and significantly add to your wedding day memories. Dive in. This topic and the history behind scent is utterly fascinating!

Scent, unlike any other sense has an uncanny ability to move, evoke and inspire us. It has the ability to transport us to a past moment in our lives, another place on the globe or a hidden crevice in our heart. This ability to capture such a momentous occasion and the meaning behind it is why wedding scent is becoming an increasingly important part of every wedding day. Design In Scent

Welcome Gemma Hopkins founder of Design In Scent and Managing Director Meghan Fay (also founder of Extraordinary Days Events), who joined forces last year to create a unique concept linking the power of scent to the magic of weddings.

That’s Meghan on the left and Gemma on the right!

In May 2014, scent designer, Gemma Hopkins, the founder of Design In Scent, was the first to link the power of scent with the magic of weddings. It was in 2016 when she partnered with wedding planner Meghan Fay, MD of Design In Scent, that the UK’s first and only dedicated wedding fragrance collection was developed and the Design In Scent Wedding Fragrance Journey™ concept was born.

So to inspire you to leave a lasting imprint on your guests, discover how you can add scent to your wedding day and some of the incredible benefits!

Over to Founder, Gemma Hopkins for more details!

How can adding scent elevate your wedding day and add to your wedding experience?

Smell is the sense that we rarely stop to consider, but it is the only sense that has a direct link to the brain’s limbic system. This is often referred to as our emotional brain as it’s the centre of our feelings, memories and imagination.

Bypassing all rational thought, scent has the ability to deeply move us and trigger memories from long ago. Weaving scent into a wedding then not only creates a beautiful atmosphere and uplifts guests, but can play as important a role as photography, capturing the joy, the excitement and the love and transporting you back there years later with just a hint of the fragrance.

Our day-to-day lives are naturally full of sensorial moments that if removed would take the richness, the colour, out of the experience – the smell of tropical heat when you step off a plane, the smoky wood of a log fire in winter, the alpine freshness atop a mountain. None of those experiences would be quite so joyous without this, so when you actually stop to think about it, not harnessing the sense of smell on your wedding day leaves out an incredibly powerful part of the whole story.

What was the inspiration behind the Design In Scent wedding collection?

Quite simply, love.

Two people coming together in marriage is such a significant moment and the fragrances in our Wedding Collection have been designed both to celebrate this and capture it in time.

We have created four beautiful Fragrance Journeys™ that each contain a Feminine eau de Parfum, a Masculine eau de Parfum and a Union ambience scent that blends the two together. This is to symbolise a couple’s individualities, their joining in marriage and the journey this entails. The fragrances are then linked to the love and joy of this time and even decades in the future can trigger those magical feelings.

How can you create neutral scents that aren’t too floral or feminine or too woody or masculine and create something that isn’t gender specific?

The notion of a fragrance note being gender-specific, i.e. florals for women, or woody notes for men, is remnant of a cultural insistence in the nineteenth century that sexes appear in all ways to be different.

Traditionally the same perfumes had been worn by men and women – George IV of England for example discovered what came to be his favourite scent on a princess at a ball.

Sweet floral fragrances came to be considered as feminine by nature because according to the gender standards of the day, ‘sweetness’ and ‘floweriness’ were quintessentially and desirable feminine characteristics, while the woods was an acceptable domain for men.

While these fragrance gender divisions still exist, we’re hoping that our fragrances will at least start to blur the lines as we all have both feminine and masculine qualities. We wholeheartedly encourage men to try a floral fragrance, while warm, woody scents are beautiful on women’s skin and can feel incredibly empowering. Our feminine and masculine fragrances can also be layered on top of one another so you can find your perfect fragrance balance.

How does scent evoke memories?

When we smell something new, within our brain’s limbic system, we create an association between that smell and what we are experiencing at the time.

We link it to the time, to the place and to the people. To the colours, the sounds and the feelings. That link is permanent, so when we smell a familiar scent in the future, even long-forgotten and dusty memories can resurface, filling us with the emotions connected to that moment. Exactly how this happens is still scientifically unknown, but perhaps such exquisite mysteries don’t always need to be solved…

How can you add scent to your wedding day?

We think of this as Fragrance Layering, as during your engagement and on the day, different layers of a fragrance story can be built.

We suggest beginning to weave scent throughout the planning of your wedding, during those moments of love and excitement. Whether using perfume for the skin, or combining this with candles and ambience mists for the air, scent offers the perfect way to slow down, reflect and revel in the feeling.

Then on the wedding day itself, a powerful connection will already exist and will add to the rush of meeting one another at your ceremony.

To enrich the wedding and share the story with guests, scent can be diffused throughout the ceremony and reception venues using candles, ambience mists or by hiring our intelligent diffusers (these fill a room with scented air and can be controlled by smart phone or tablet). Ambience mists (or any perfume or room spray you love) can be used to scent stationery, linen and even confetti. Try scenting fans for warm summer weddings – a truly luxurious touch!

Products that carry the same scent can then be gifted to guests, so they can continue to relive the beautiful memory of your celebration.

Absolutely fascinating. Thank you so much for these wonderful tips and insights Gemma! For further details on Design In Scent and their wedding fragrance journey, please visit: https://www.designinscent.com/wedding/

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